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Sri Lanka

POLICE DETAIN BUDDHIST MONKS OVER ALLEGED REBEL ARMS FOUND AT TEMPLE

Updated: February 29, 1996 05:00 PM GMT
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Three Sinhalese Buddhist monks including the chief incumbent of a Colombo temple have been taken into custody for interrogation over arms found on its premises alleged to be for Tamil rebels.

The arrest of Ramalingam Darmalingam, a Tamil, resulted in the accidental recovery Feb. 18 of two rocket-propelled grenade chargers and rounds and 16 hand grenades believed for use by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

The arms were buried on the Dharmadutha Viharaya (missionary temple) grounds in Narahenpita, Colombo, near the Military Police headquarters.

Darmalingam, 56, now believed to have aided Tamil rebels to smuggle in arms for suicide missions in Colombo, had stayed with the monks since 1986.

An assistant commissioner in the Workers Education Division of the Labor Department, he has a good knowledge of Buddhism, good command of the Sinhalese language and has previously voiced an anti-LTTE stand.

"As he was so innocent and pious, we never suspected dishonesty," Venerable Kudaligama Amarawansa Thero, the chief monk of the temple, told the media.

This is the first time that Buddhist monks have been questioned under detention over housing suspected Tamil rebels or arms, though guns and ammunition were reportedly hidden in some temples during the 1971 insurrection led by Sinhalese Marxists in which some young Buddhist monks were involved.

"We are not concerned whether (suspects) are Buddhist or Hindu or Catholic. ... We will search everywhere and that will include temples as well as churches," a foreign news source quoted a senior police officer Feb. 20.

Darmalingam´s wife Selvarani was a neighbor of LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. Her brother Kumarappa, an LTTE Jaffna leader, committed suicide in 1987 in Colombo, swallowing cyanide while under arrest by the navy.

This is the fourth Colombo temple linked to Tamil militants´ violent activities in the capital. The first was the Paramananda Temple where over 300 kilograms of high explosives were found in early 1994.

The second was a temple at Rajagiriya, where a lorry used by attackers of the Kolonnawa and Orugedawatte fuel installations last Oct. 20 was parked

The third was Sama Viharaya (peace temple), where 150 kilograms of high explosives were found in a lorry Feb. 12.

Father Benedict Joseph, editor of the Sinhalese Catholic weekly Gnanartha Pradeepaya (light of wisdom), told UCA News Feb. 19 that though the LTTE is using temple premises, "We would not attribute any ´male fide´ intention to these monks whose sacred precincts have been used for terrorist activities."

Calling media reports of incidents like this "partisan and biased," he urged journalists to present facts, not interpret them according to their whims.

When Fathers Saverimuthu Jebanesan and Emmanuel Pius were arrested Nov.5 for carrying undeclared money and banned items to the north, some media began accusing the Catholic Church of supporting LTTE rebels.

The priests, later released without charges, proved the money was intended for war refugees in the north and the batteries, wire and oil-seals were of a negligible quantity for personal use and not part of any smuggling operation.

In a Jan. 28 statement, Sri Lanka´s bishops criticized sections of the media for orchestrating a vicious campaign against the Church over the incident.

"We too, like our extremist media friends, could have slung mud easily at the Buddhist clergy over arms on temple grounds," a Sinhalese Catholic writer told UCA News, requesting anonymity. "But we are not that hasty," he said.

"The innocent monks may have been duped by the LTTE," he added.

The LTTE has been fighting for more than 12 years for Tamil autonomy in northern and eastern Sri Lanka.

END

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